Aromatic polyketones such as polyaryletherketone resins are crystalline resins valued due to their resistance to high temperatures, crystallizability, melt extrudability, and injection moldability, thereby making them versatile and useful in many situations. Crystallization of polymers is an important feature in polymer processing, because the structure developed during crystallization affects the mechanical and physical properties of the polymer product. The crystallization of polymers under processing conditions is essential for optimizing the processing conditions to obtain a product with desired properties.
Unfortunately, aromatic polyketones, such as polyaryletherketone resins frequently suffer from brittleness, e.g., poor toughness (low ductility), making them unsuitable for a range of applications.
There has been a long felt need to develop a composition that has a ductility that is better than aromatic ketones that still retains the advantageous processing features found in polyaryletherketone resins. Blends of polyaryletherketone resins with other resins have sought to solve this problem, but these blends have suffered from drawbacks such as insufficient ductility, delamination and the like. EP323142B1, for instance, discloses ternary blends of poly(arylene ether ketone) (PEEK), silicone-polyimide and polyetherimide. EP323142B1 teaches, in part, that although it would be expected that a blend of PEEK and silicone-polyimide would improve over PEEK alone, “this is not so.” EP 323142B1 teaches that “it would seem that the two materials are insufficiently mutually compatible so that two phases remain after thorough blending resulting in separation and imhomogeneity upon extrusion and fibrillation and poor flexibility of the extruded product.”
For the foregoing reasons, there remains a need for a non-delaminated blend composition that exhibits the high temperature performance features of polyaryletherketone resin and also exhibits excellent ductility properties.